Facebook, X, TikTok and YouTube have all approved adverts featuring extreme and violent misogynistic hate speech against women journalists in South Africa, according to a new investigation by Global Witness and the South African public interest law firm, Legal Resources Centre.
Researchers submitted ten adverts containing hate speech targeting women journalists to Facebook/Meta, TikTok, X and YouTube.
According to the investigation, all four platforms approved the vast majority of the adverts despite the extreme content and the fact that they clearly breached the platforms' own policies on hate speech.
Researchers found that Meta and TikTok approved all 40 ads within just 24 hours, YouTube approved them all but flagged 21 of the 40, X approved all, aside from two English adverts, which had their publication "halted".
"We all want an online world that connects us rather than divides us," said Digital Threats Campaigner at Global Witness Hannah Sharpe.
"To achieve this we need social media corporations to build safety-by-design into their platforms and governments to bring forward balanced regulation grounded in human rights that holds platforms accountable," Ms Sharpe said.
In response to the Global Witness investigation, a Meta spokesperson said the ads violated its policies and were removed.
"Despite our ongoing investments, we know that there will be examples of things we miss or we take down in error, as both machines and people make mistakes," Meta said.
A TikTok spokesperson said its auto-moderation technology correctly flagged the submitted advertisements as potentially violating their policies but a second review, by a human moderator, incorrectly overrode the decision.
Global Witness said that Google and X were approached for comment but did not respond.
